


Strange Manor

by pentapus



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-09 05:07:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13474308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentapus/pseuds/pentapus
Summary: Bruce let his eyes close to wallow for a moment in worry and fear for Jason. One second, two, three. He opened his eyes. Time to act.





	Strange Manor

The first sign Bruce had been transported was the change in light. A shiver passed over his skin as the portal encompassed him, and the washed out fluorescence of Harrison's illicit lab disappeared completely. Bruce kept his footing, lurching into a sturdy metal frame. His hand closed around it -- utility shelves.

He shuddered. Thank god Robin wasn't with him to be transported to an unknown location, or worse: stranded back in Harrison’s lab, a lone Robin and no Batman in sight. It was a test Bruce didn't want Jason to face, not yet. 

Behind him, the machine stopped whirring and went dark, cutting off the blue glow his eyes had just started to detect. No movement. He was alone in a large room cluttered with neatly arranged shelving units. 

Familiar shelving units. He flexed his fingers uneasily around the frame. That damp, limestone smell --

Bruce stood smoothly. The arrangement of the shelves wasn't exactly as he remembered, but this was the Cave. He felt uneasy. There was no way he could be here unless something had gone very wrong.

Motion sensitive lights flickered to life as he stood. A perfect copy of the device he'd seen in Patrick Harrison's lab sat on the shelf behind him inside a containment box, a catalogue label at the base. Clearly, the containment system had been ineffective.

This was not good. All the explanations for how he'd gotten here were bad ones. One, the device was some kind of bio-storage unit, and Bruce had been trapped in it so long that getting him out of it was no longer an active project. Two, it was an interdimensional transportation device, and he might never find the right universe to return to. Three, it was a time machine, and every minute he spent here put his own timeline in greater jeopardy. Four, it was a virtual reality generator of technological or magical origin, and his physical body was currently defenseless.

He couldn't make a plan without knowing which scenario he was dealing with, even if knowledge itself was dangerous in the case of scenario three: time travel. But acting without information would likely be effort wasted, if not disastrous. There was no room for error when you were a mundane human competing on a playing field that included superhumans.

In the main room of the Cave, the gymnast's rings hung down from the ceiling over the exercise mats. The sight stopped him in place, chest tightening. In his Cave, they were pulled up and stored. He hadn’t seen that equipment in use in -- it had been more than year. Hope leapt in his heart, distracting him dangerously.

He had to wrench himself away from the sight.

There were framed personal photographs on the computer desk, a indulgence Bruce didn't favor. He reached out without thinking and had to pull his hand back. 

The rings, the photos -- _Dick_ had been here. 

In the photographs, there were people out of costume. Bruce didn't allow that, and he felt a frisson of worry looking at them. For the photos to be here, Dick -- _a_ Dick -- had to be an active participant in the mission. Dick didn't come to Bruce's Cave anymore.

Upstairs and downstairs shouldn't mix. There were too many reasons to avoid it. But Dick had been raised in this life in a way Bruce hadn't, and Bruce had realized too late that it was destroying Dick’s ability to compartmentalize. Dick hadn’t been the first or the last person to accuse Batman of being more real than Bruce Wayne, but Dick was the one who viewed his vigilante activities as his home. It was the reason Dick had stayed off the gossip pages so completely; because he barely interacted with anyone outside the vigilante community.

Seeing civilian photos next to the bat computer scared him -- had this happened because Bruce _wasn't_ here? _Had_ he been tapped in a bio-storage unit for years? Or had the Bruce of this universe allowed himself to be convinced it wouldn't lead to real, physical injury for Dick in the future? 

The photos themselves offered some clues.

The first two pictures were of Dick and Jason in costume, which Bruce could almost forgive, though damaging analysis could still be done on them. Dick's suit was different in his picture: more armored, Bruce was pleased to see, and the long, eye-catching stripes reduced to a single crest. Jason's suit was the same, though the photo showed signs of puberty marching forward, Jason's jaw a little stronger, his shoulders a little wider than the Jason Bruce had last seen nursing a pulled hamstring and pouting about being benched.

The third photo eliminated the least disastrous scenario -- a bio-storage unit that had merely removed Bruce from his own life for a while -- because Bruce himself was in this picture. It was a wide cherry frame of Bruce and his family out of costume. He recognized Dick, Alfred, and himself, but there were others. An angry little boy Bruce didn't know was wrapped in Dick's arms, and Bruce had his hands on the shoulders of two young adults, the girl of east Asian descent, the boy perhaps of mixed heritage. Dick had lost some of his teenage skinniness and Alfred looked unchanged.

Time travel, then. The most dangerous option. A virtual reality simulation was still possible, but he wouldn't allow himself to be so optimistic.

Jason wasn't in the photo. Bruce's chest went cold as he struggled to hold that thought at a distance. He felt as powerless as he had standing at his parents’ grave, shoes sinking in the soft grass. 

_The future. Five years or less_. But his universe or someone else's?

He could see other differences in the cave, but they were small, none that felt like the sloppy edges of an imitation or like that cave had been built by other hands than his own. Just the small changes that accumulated with time and use. 

Bruce let his eyes close to wallow for a moment in worry and fear for Jason. One second, two, three. He opened his eyes. Time to act.

**

The house was quiet and dark, 2:37 AM showing on the oven clock. A carafe of juice was out on the counter, the kitchen otherwise untouched. Bruce had a passing paternal instinct to put it away. Having the manor around him was making him forget he was in the field.

Bruce found himself in the small TV room across from the kitchen. It was eerie to recognize his own broad shoulders sitting in the armchair, his own pensive pose, head bent to rest his chin on a closed fist. He braced himself for the difficulty in dealing with someone equally as reluctant to cede control. Ideally, his other self would already know how to use the device, since he'd catalogued it and stored it on his shelf.

But the person who turned to look at him _wasn't_ Bruce Wayne. It was someone _else_ big, broad, and dark-haired, sitting alone in the dark. Someone he didn't know. Bruce frowned, weight shifting in preparation for violence.

The man was younger, though his frame filled the chair as thoroughly as Clark. Freckles dusted his cheeks, and deep-set eyes glared at Bruce from under thick eyebrows. He had a head of tousled, black curls, trimmed short at the sides. Despite his youth, his hair was going white in a streak above his right eye. 

When he saw Bruce, his knees leapt apart, boots planted wide to leap to his feet. Then he stopped, staring at the bat symbol on Bruce’s chest. 

The tightness in Bruce's chest unwound, relief washing over him.

“Jason,” he breathed, grateful and momentarily paralyzed by the sight. It _was_ Jason, unmistakable in the shape of his eyes, his nose, and the downturn of his mouth. Bruce would never have expected the small, malnourished child he'd found in Crime Alley to grow into this man. There was something warmly satisfying just looking at him, that Bruce -- or more likely Alfred’s cooking -- had done right by Jason. 

Jason went rigid. His eyes flickered over Bruce piece by piece. Finally he said, his tone unnaturally even, “Where'd you dig up that suit?”

Good, very good. Bruce allowed himself the edges of a smile as he answered dryly, “June 2007.”

Jason's eyes widened slightly, though it had to be an answer he was expecting. He'd clearly caught some small change in the suit's design.

“You're alone?” Jason’s eyes had a fearful cast as he looked past Bruce to the dark hallway. His jaw tightened until Bruce saw a flash of white teeth, just a hint of a snarl. Jason added as though disgusted, “School night?”

It made Bruce hesitate, aware he was staring into a five year blind spot and that _something_ was wrong.

“Dick Tracy night,” Bruce said. The injury consolation prize. They'd watched one in the cave before Bruce left, Jason pulling himself along the parallel bars, determined as always to prove he was a physically able part of the team. 

Jason stared before jerking his head away, laughing to himself. “Fuck, of course.” He seemed to make some kind of deliberate decision, sitting fully back in the chair, lounging without being truly relaxed. “Just get here? This your first stop?”

Bruce lifted an eyebrow, the expression concealed by the mask. “I encountered an unknown device that transported me here roughly twenty minutes ago where the same device appears to be contained in cave storage.”

“Catalogued?” Jason wouldn't look at Bruce, his body in a stiff imitation of leisure.

“Yes. Can you access the file?”

“You can't?”

“Not without causing unnecessary alarm.The system's back doors have changed.”

Jason let out a sharp laugh. “Yeah, they would have.” His head dipped, his voice too. “You want... me to call someone?” 

“Jason,” Bruce said, guessing at the cause of Jason's discomfort. “I have no intention of seeking out information about the years I've skipped.”

Silence, then: “Of fucking course not. So, what, you want to watch Dick Tracy reruns and wait for the device to reboot itself?”

It came out wistful, though Bruce suspected it was meant to be cutting. Everything else Jason had said so far had been. It reminded Bruce of the first few weeks after he'd taken Jason in, before the defensive shell had peeled back and revealed someone so eager to love and be loved. Jason lips pressed shut too late, expression thunderous. Bruce stepped forward before he'd even thought about it, gripping Jason's shoulder. 

Jason stared at him, frozen.

Bruce couldn't keep himself from running over scenarios in his head. That he was dead in this time. That like Dick, Bruce and Jason had not escaped a breakdown in their relationship as Jason matured. Or that neither of those things had happened, and Jason's bad mood was nothing more than the kind of bad night they all had sometimes, a mood that could only be medicated by sitting alone in the dark.

Jason's hand came up to cover Bruce’s, his expression blank, then ironic, then tired.

For that alone, Bruce wished desperately that he _could_ sit down here and ignore the device for a little while. He could put on one of the old movies Jason loved, the ones Bruce hadn't watched since his mother was alive. 

There was a quiet moment when one of them might have spoken, a strong and true connection between them, and then Bruce turned his head and saw a full glass of juice on the coffee table. The glass was too far away for Jason to reach. Bruce realized belatedly that Jason's chair had been dragged closer to the couch, his knee pointed towards it like a beacon. 

Dick was asleep on the couch. 

He'd been hidden by the high back until Bruce had stepped forward. Bruce goggled at him, disbelieving. The gymnast's rings had been a sign, but Bruce was still surprised to see Dick _here_ in the manor, curled up with his hair fanning out and a hand half-open by his head. He looked immediately familiar in a way Jason hadn't, though Dick's cheeks had lost some of the baby fat he'd had when Bruce had seen him months ago. He was asleep, a slight whistle on each outgoing breath. 

Bruce frowned. Jason hadn't acted like there was anyone else in the room. He had let Bruce get this close to Dick even though Jason had obviously identified Bruce as someone who shouldn't be here. 

That wasn't good; Jason had too much faith in him. 

And Dick hadn't woken.

“What happened?” Bruce asked. Dick had to be drugged. He didn't look as egregiously exhausted as he'd have to be to sleep through this. 

“Are you kidding me?” Jason said. All his hackles had gone up. His voice was nasty. “I slipped him a mickey, you know, like siblings do.”

Then he winced and closed his eyes like a child regretting cussing in front of a parent.

Bruce forced himself not to ask anything further. It was information he had no business knowing. It was a struggle not to look into the shadows of the room, searching for something that would explain Dick's inattentiveness, something terrifying and permanent like Barbara's chair. 

But even so -- “I'm assuming opioid painkillers.”

“Only the best, right?” Jason opened his eyes and stood, obviously gathering himself. “Okay, old man. Let's go. I'm not sure I can get in; we're doing a -- system reboot and -- ”

“Jason,” Bruce said. “You need to confirm my identity.”

“I really fucking don't,” Jason said. He winced, his shoulders dropping with a slow breath. When he looked up again, he'd put on a smile that Bruce knew well, half challenge half welcome, always a little sly. “Don't you think you should confirm mine?”

Bruce didn't answer immediately, needing the time to think. There was something unknown dictating how this interaction was going, a strange whiplash quality to Jason's emotions, and he didn’t know if it was temporary like Dick's presumed injury or long term. 

“Look,” Jason said, “I get it -- you're stuck in a logic puzzle. For me not to be _me_ , this whole thing -- the manor, me, Dickiebird -- would most likely be a hallucination, including the equipment you'd use to test me. Intuition is all you've got. But the most likely false scenario _for me_ is that you're a real physical imposter who could be exposed with a quick physical scan. So you think: follow protocol, Robin.

“The thing is, you're wrong. There's an _encyclopedia_ of context you're missing. Trust me, you don't even _know_ the maze you've navigated to be even halfway plausible. The only way you're not who the bat ears say you are, _dad,_ ” and here Jason hesitated like he'd swallowed a hiccup, striking Bruce through the heart without realizing it. Neither Dick or Jason had _ever_ called him that, and yet five years later, here was Jason acting like Bruce expected the title, even though the word seemed to hit both of them like a bullet. “ -- is if I'm hallucinating, too.”

They stared at each other. Jason swallowed. Bruce's hand tightened into a fist.

“Let's just -- get it fixed.”

“Alright, son,” Bruce said, feeling like he taken a step onto a tightrope. Maybe he _had_ died in this future. “Let's go downstairs.”

He hesitated, thinking of leaving Dick injured and unattended, as though unloved, as though Bruce would be confirming a preference for Jason, his newest, less troublesome child.

Jason saw, tipped his head toward the couch. “He's just sleeping it off. I'm only here because Alf will kill me if he's not in a real bed by sunrise.”

**

Jason let Bruce pass a retinal scan while he watched, the cowl pulled back. But his only comment was, “Well, now I'm falsely reassured. And probably screwed if I am starving to death in a Lotus-eater machine somewhere.”

Bruce chuckled. It seemed to unnerve Jason.

Not as much as the system accepting Jason's password on the first try. Jason blinked.

“Oh, I guess they -- fixed it.” He seemed so discombobulated that Bruce wondered how badly the cave had been compromised to require reconfiguration of the entire security system, and if that attack was the source of Dick's injury. 

“Hold on, there's a cross reference.” Jason sent the digital file to a large workspace near the storage room before he went looking for the physical file. The security breach must have affected the physical filing system too because it took Jason longer than it should have to come back with a sheaf of lab files. The letterhead matched the logo of the R&D facility where Bruce had been before he'd appeared here. It took Jason even longer to locate pen and paper, rattling nervously through a series of cabinets.

“They -- he -- you moved them,” Jason said, face flushed. 

“It's alright,” Bruce said.

The device was not so heavy it couldn't be wheeled out on the dolly Bruce kept in the cave. In the last five years, Bruce had added a containment room that probably doubled as both a panic room and a reinforced, nullifying cell for metahumans. It must not be used very often, which was reassuring, because Jason struggled getting it open. 

Bruce considered. Jason had struggled with the filling system and then with finding a pen and paper. Bruce didn't want to think it, but it looked like Jason didn't spend much time here. It turned over nauseously in his stomach; he was doomed to have fallings out with each of his sons.

When they came out again, there was someone standing by the workspace. 

The sight of him froze Jason in place. It wasn't Dick, and he was in a costume Bruce hasn't seen before. He was slender, no bigger than Jason in Bruce's time. With the black cape and red tunic, Bruce might have mistaken him for Robin coming to retrieve his partner, except that unlike Robin, he had a smooth black cowl over his head. 

The newcomer’s mouth opened in surprise when he saw them. He pulled back the cowl, revealing the face of the young man in the family photograph, his expression shyly hopeful until he too noticed something in Bruce's suit. His expression settled into wary confusion, and he turned wide eyes to Jason.

Jason had gone rigid again, white showing around his eyes. His hand dropped to his hip like he expected a weapon, but there was nothing there. 

“Hello,” Bruce said, stopping half a step in front of Jason, “I need an introduction, though I suspect you don't.”

**

Tim. 

Jesus fucking -- 

Fuck.

Mortification clogged Jason's throat, making his hair stand on end. Hot on its heels: the panicky rage of someone cornered.

He'd thought he had an hour at least -- but no, he hadn't been keeping track of time, had he? He'd forgotten everything else the instant Bruce put his hand on Jason's shoulder. Because this wasn't really Bruce. This was fantasyland Bruce, Jason's Batman.

He'd been too busy lapping up every moment of Bruce calling him son and putting a hand on his shoulder, and now Tim had fucking walked in on Jason begging for Bruce's attention like a dog. Jason would rather get caught jerking off in a batsuit on the kitchen counter. 

“Time travel?” Tim said. He moved slowly like he thought he was going to startle a wild animal.

Jason couldn't speak. Bruce was looking at him. Jesus, he was waiting for Jason to vet Tim. Which made Jason want to shoot -- either of them. He wasn't even sure why really except that Bruce looking to Jason was giving Tim a flashing neon sign that Jason had been showing his belly instead of his teeth. 

Who knew what Bruce had gotten out of Jason's silence, but he turned to Replacement and said, “Yes. About five years.”

“2007,” Tim guessed, the fucker. Of course he'd done some creepy study of batsuit fashion. Jason had _lived_ it. Tim's eyes flicked over the file in Bruce's hand, the computer, the containment room behind them. Jason could hear his little brain putting together shit Jason hadn't even noticed. 

Jason's stomach dropped. Tim was going to tell Bruce. He owed Jason absolutely nothing, had no reason not to tell. And it made Jason's hand go for the gun he didn't have. 

Jason should have told Bruce himself when he had still been in control, when the understanding and betrayal blossoming across Bruce's face would have lifted Jason up instead of torn him down. He didn't know why he hadn't, except that faced with a Batman who still believed Jason deserved to be Robin, retribution hadn't been what he wanted. No, he'd wanted to watch Dick Tracy like the last five years had never happened and be held like a son and probably bawlhis fucking eyes out. 

Jesus. 

He felt like a body during autopsy, chest cracked and hollowed out for everyone to see. He was wearing that all over his face in front of the fucking Replacement, who could put Jason on his knees just by opening his mouth and telling Bruce the truth.

“Do you -- do you want me to take a look?” Tim said. “At the database?”

Jason stared at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Bruce said nothing, a gothic statue waiting for Jason before it came to life, but Jason was still experiencing a full system shutdown. He could have said anything, could have thrown Tim under the bus to get him out of here, but they were in Tim's cave, not Jason's, and Tim was squirrelly and resourceful in the presence of computers. Jason couldn't -- he couldn't risk Bruce going home and treating his Jason any differently. That kid should get to have his time in the manor with Bruce's love unblemished.

Jason swallowed. “Yeah. That'd be -- ” _fuck_ , what would Nightwing say, “ -- great, Tim.”

Tim's eyes widened, making him look twelve instead of 19, and Jason glared at him in a panic. Tim narrowed his eyes back, and they exchanged a series of minute shifts in expression, cats warily circling each other, until Tim turned, sweeping his cape out behind him -- he really was a fucking bat, dramatic little shit -- and sat down at the main computer console. Immediately, windows started popping up, some quickly dismissed, some put aside, Tim's fingers tapping a fast staccato against the keys.

Jason let out a breath. His skin felt tight like it was going to split open. 

“You arrived 43 minutes ago outside the containment unit?” Tim said.

“Yes,” Bruce said. He was watching Jason. 

“This is -- this is his thing,” Jason said, reaching for his inner Nightwing. And then, more honest, “He's a fucking wizard at it.”

Tim's fingers stuttered on the keyboard.

Jason gritted his teeth, but Tim just pulled up a new file, a diagram of the device, and said, only a little shaky, “Hey, instructions.”

“What, press a button and send him back?” Jason had to shove down the traitor part that said, _Not yet._

Tim leaned forward, squinting. “Uh, yeah, actually.” He added, “The file was pretty heavily encrypted.”

“To discourage using the device for circumstances other than these,” Bruce said, leaning over Tim's shoulder to inspect the diagram.

He had one hand on the back of Tim's chair, head tipped close to Tim's. They were two figures in dark capes, cowls pulled back, discussing the fine engineering details of a time machine while Jason got left behind, unneeded. It took his breath away out how quickly the switch had happened. _Fuck_.

He kept waiting for the anger, but it wouldn't come. This wasn't the Bruce he wanted to hurt. 

He took an unsteady step back, then another, walking away blindly until he ended up in the containment chamber in front of the time machine itself. He rested his hand on the polished steel next to the controls and let himself really think about what it was. 

What it could do.

And what it meant that this machine had been in cave storage _with instructions_ for a year and a half by the time Jason had met his mother for the second time in a warehouse in Ethiopia. His fingers closed tightly into a fist next the controls.

_Fuck._

There was the anger.

**

“We have to confirm the device hasn't been used since the original event that sent me here,” Bruce said.

The boy in the chair smiled shyly up at him. He was a quiet, serious kid with flashes of an eagerness to learn and please. Something both Jason and Dick had also possessed, though tied to such different personalities. How did he keep finding these boys?

“I think we can re-configure the calibration even if it has been used,” the boy -- Tim -- said. “These instructions are pretty straightforward.”

“Clear instructions only help if the machine functions as intended,” Bruce said. “It _is_ a prototype.”

“Do you want to check if there's a more up to date model? Oh, it says here -- ”

Bruce's hand closed on Tim's shoulder. “No sneak peeks,” he said gently. “The timeline has some resiliency to change, but a strong paradox could endanger your present and prevent me from returning home. I would like to return to my family, rather than be a spare wheel to yours.”

“Return to Jason, you mean,” Tim said, looking carefully at the screen and not at Bruce, which was probably intended to hide his interest in the subject but had the opposite effect. 

Bruce smiled softly to himself. Jason had been the same about Dick, alternatively aggressive (when Dick was watching) and shyly admiring (when Dick wasn't). Based on his reaction to Tim earlier, Jason was still territorial about Bruce mentoring other boys, but Tim's reaction to Jason's praise suggested there wasn't acrimony on both sides.

Bruce looked up. Jason was gone. He stepped quietly away from the console.

He found Jason sitting on the cot in the containment chamber, staring at the machine, one hand spread over the metal next to the controls. His face was a rictus of grief. Bruce slowed. There were things in Jason's face Bruce couldn't know, not without threatening the causal chain that tied him to the boy waiting up for him five years ago.

But this _was_ that little boy, and Bruce's heart seized, helpless at the idea that he would return home and whatever this was would be waiting for them in their future.

“Jason,” he said.

“You never touched this again, did you,” Jason said.

“No,” Bruce said, though of course he had no way of knowing. “Time travel has no minimum range of effect. The cost is too high.”

“What if your family needed you to?” Jason said. “I get that yours is a little ratty and small right now, but say it grew a little, got some people you really cared about.”

The words dripped bitterness in a way Bruce hadn't heard from Jason since just after he'd come to the manor. The sense of wrongness hit Bruce like a blow. This pain was coming from someone he thought of as -- that he wanted to be -- _his son._ Jason had called him ‘Dad’ not twenty minutes ago. Bruce would not let that go without a fight.

“Jason, my family is already big enough for me to care about.”

Jason didn't look away from the time machine, jaw set.

“The collateral is unknowable,” Bruce said. Time travel frightened him to his bones. The consequences could be neither controlled nor defended against. You might never know it had happened at all. And the people affected most might be people Bruce had never met, people on the other side of the world with neither training nor meta ability to protect themselves. “It would be an unconscionable risk.”

“You act like -- ” Jason made a disgusted sound. “It's not a moral failing to protect your family. That's how _humans_ work. You can be _human._ ”

Bruce sat down on the cot with a sigh. “I've had this conversation with Dick, many times.”

The topic was frustrating and difficult, but it was also familiar. Fights that ended with Dick barely speaking to him and his presence absent from the cave. Maybe Bruce could do better with this parental responsibility the second time. Maybe it was impossible. Jason and Dick had both been raised to this life, and to them, it meant home and family, not a job with responsibilities of impossible weight. Bruce couldn't begrudge either of them for choosing to prioritize empathy above all else, a path that had led Dick to Nightwing instead of to the cowl. Maybe the cowl would die with Bruce. Maybe the boy waiting in the other room would be able to develop the balance of care and distance the job required. Maybe the young woman or the angry little boy in the photograph.

Jason goggled at him like the comparison was inconceivable, covering it with a hasty deflection. “About _time travel_?” 

Interesting that Jason still knew very little about the content of Bruce and Dick's disagreements. Bruce had expected a closer connection between them based on Jason's vigil upstairs, but -- no, he should stop speculating.

“About the responsibilities of power,” Bruce said. “Jason, we have a great deal of power.”

Jason turned his face away. “Jesus, don't lecture me about -- look. The point is, maybe you shouldn't have kids while you do this, if you can’t love them like selfish families do.”

That startled Bruce. He heard again: _Dad._ “Jason -- ”

Jason was struggling to keep his voice even. “You're supposed to set the world on fire to keep them safe if you have to, you're supposed to _want_ to.” His resolve splintered a little into uncertainty, voice cracking. “Right?”

Bruce reached for him. Jason eyes went wide and round like dinner plates, and he froze. His face turned red, then white, and Bruce pulled him in during his confusion, fitting Jason's head against his shoulder despite his present size.

Jason fingers spasmed on his back before they closed in his cape, clutching desperately. Silence was key in offering Jason affection like this, the pretense that it was unnoticed or unobserved. Bruce tightened his arms, helpless.

It was painfully obvious that Jason had been talking about himself. And Bruce _must not_ figure out what or why or when, or the paradox would be too strong for Dr. Harrison's little machine to overcome. It wouldn't be able to send him back to his Jason, asleep on the old couch next to the cave workstation, desperately in need of a parental figure who came home each night still loving him. Because that was the problem wasn't it -- that Jason _didn't_ have a reference for how families should be, and somehow between then and now Bruce hadn't given it to him.

Bruce didn't know what to do. He couldn't pass the test Jason was laying out for him, no matter how much he wanted to. “I can't endanger other people's sons and daughters to save my own,” he said, remembering the young woman in the photo. “That isn't a world I can help create.”

“Yeah,” Jason said, a century of exhaustion in his voice, “I fucking know.”

**

The scuff of a boot in the doorway served as the Bat equivalent of Tim clearing his throat. Jason jerked away. Two quick steps took him to the wall, turning to lean against it. His brain felt foggy like he'd just woken from REM sleep. He rubbed unconsciously at his arms where Bruce had held him. He felt confused that he'd still… fit. No, that wasn't the right word. Shit, he couldn't think.

“You have the protocol?” Bruce said, pulling Tim's attention, like he thought Jason needed to _recover_ before talking to Tim. It annoyed Jason that he was right.

"Yeah, I have the instructions here.” Tim shifted the tablet in his hand awkwardly. “Pretty simple.” 

He dropped to a crouch, referring carefully to the tablet as he entered a long sequence into the machine's controls. Jason's eyes narrowed.

"More than just a button, huh?”

Tim hesitated. “Uh. Yeah.”

Bruce was watching Jason watch Tim. “You need to disable or destroy it after you send me back.”

“We'll figure it out,” Tim said. Jason eyed him suspiciously. That wasn't an immediate acquiescence to Bruce's order.

From Bruce's hesitation, he knew it too. But he didn't push. He had been strangely hands off the whole time, Jason realized, yielding first to Jason and then Tim -- he was serious about this time travel business. Minimal involvement.

Jason's hands tightened reflexively, digging into the flesh where Bruce had touched him, and he swallowed uncomfortably. Had Bruce thought _that_ was minimal involvement or had it been an exception, the kind Jason craved like a neglected wife yearning for diamonds on her anniversary. He felt off balance, and having Tim here to see it was activating all his fight or flight responses. 

Bruce stood, pulling on his cowl. A small hesitation was the only sign of a deliberate choice not to block Jason's view of what Tim was doing, but it was obvious to Jason. He crossed his arms and looked away. It was useless anyway. He could just get the instructions from the database if he wanted them. It would be their fault if he did -- letting his password still work.

Bruce stopped in front of Jason, silent and unreadable behind the cowl, the Batman who still believed in him. They were the same height, and it hurt in a stupid way, an unwanted reminder that he wasn't the one who got to have this. That he'd used it up years ago.

“Go watch Dick Tracy,” Jason said. And he couldn't stop himself from being nasty: “Who gives a fuck what you decide to do with this thing.”

Batman tipped his head in an acknowledgement Jason didn't want and didn't need.

He activated the machine.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This story exists because I loved the idea of Bruce-from-the-past (or anyone really) mistaking a fully grown Jason for Bruce, even just for a second. There's just a lot of good stuff there, including whether on any given day it would make Jason happy or piss him the hell off.
> 
> There is a second part to this story with Dick and Tim. My schedule is swamped right now, but I'm working on it... slowly. (eta: this fic used to say 1/2, but I've decided the two parts work better as separate stories.)


End file.
